Transcript Document

Common Core State
Standards
(aka Missouri Learning Standards)
Un- Tested
Un-Approved
Un-Funded
Unnecessary
Education Is A States Right
• Education is not mentioned in the
Constitution as a federal responsibility
meaning it is reserved to the states to
control.
• Limitations on Federal involvement in
education are specifically noted in at
least three congressional acts dealing
with education.
Federal Law: General
Educational Provisions Act
(GEPA)
• “No provision of any applicable program shall
be construed to authorize any department,
agency, officer, or employee of the United
States to exercise any direction, supervision, or
control over the curriculum, program of
instruction, administration, or personnel of
any educational institution, school, or school
system, or over the selection of library
resources, textbooks, or other printed or
published instructional materials by any
educational institution or school system…“
Federal Law: Reauthorization of
the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA)
Aka No Child Left Behind
• Section 9529 “PROHIBITION ON FEDERALLY
SPONSORED TESTING. (a) GENERAL PROHIBITION Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal law
and except as provided in subsection (b), no funds
provided under this Act to the Secretary or to the
recipient of any award may be used to develop,
pilot test, field test, implement, administer, or
distribute any federally sponsored national test in
reading, mathematics, or any other subject, unless
specifically and explicitly authorized by law.”
Common Core Reform
Agenda
“Traditionally, the federal
government in the U.S. has had a
limited role in educational policy.
The Obama Administration has
sought to fundamentally shift the
federal role…”
~ Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
2010 UNESCO Conference
Common Core
The Marketing of Lies
“The federal government
is not involved in
Common Core. It is a
state led initiative.”
Federal Involvement
2009 Stimulus Bill (ARRA)
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Gave $4.35 Billion to USDoEd who
funded:
• Race To The Top Grant Program
• Testing Consortia
• Threatened Title I $$$
$$$$ Gates Foundation, GE, McGraw Hill, Pearson, Scholastic to develop Common Core Standards $$$$
Stimulus $$$ to
GE funneled to
Common Core
Work 2012
Tax $$$ from
states paying
membership dues
and Dept. of Ed.
Grants
Washington, DC-based Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) contracts with Washington, DCbased David Coleman/Achieve Inc. to develop Common Core State Standards which are copyrighted to
CCSS and Achieve Inc., removing transparency from development process and removes local control and
parent involvement.
Council of Chief State School
National Gov. Asso. partners with Council of Chief State
Officers (CCSSO) houses work
School Officers to form Common Core State Standards
force development and
Initiative (CCSSI)
DataQuality
longitudinal data system
June 26, 2009 press release stating Gov. Nixon
Campaign (501c3)
consults to states
to implement LDS
U.S. Department of Education
(federal tax $) and state dues
(state tax $) fund (CCSSO).
Tax $$$ from
federal income
tax
The Department baited states to
adopt CCSS through grants,
waivers, and at one time, threats
to withhold Title I money.
The Department gave stimulus
money to states to create
Longitudinal Data System
Sec. of Ed. Arne Duncan changed
Family Educational Rights and
Privacy Act (FERPA) to weaken law
and collect student data using
Longitudinal Data Systems
Local and state tax $$$
pay for membership in
consortia, technology,
assessments,
instructional
materials, additional
personnel, etc.
Changes to FERPA allow
student data share with
Dept. of Defense,
Dept. of Labor, SRI
International, Lockheed,
Nat’l Sci. Digital Library,
etc.
unilaterally signed MOU to NGA without State Board of
Ed. for dev. of CCSS
Commissioner of Ed. Chris Nicastro hired in July, signs
MOU (no updated time stamp), it is faxed to CCSSO
August 14, 2009.
January 2010, State Board of Education applies for Race to the
Top Grant money. Application requires adoption of CCSS and
adoption of consortia assessment. MO was not awarded money.
February 2012, State Board of Education applies for NCLB
waiver. Application requires adoption of CCSS, assessment plan
– Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), and
federally controlled accountability of principals,
superintendents, teachers, & State evaluation committees.
Murdoch’s Amplify built the
infrastructure of assessment;
InBloom (501c3) will operate
database
Stimulus $$$ given to Smarter Balanced
Assessment Consortium (SBAC) & Partnership for
Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and
Careers (PARCC), which report to federal govt.
Teacher
Eval &
Student
Assess
Data
David Coleman moves to College Board;
plans to restructure SAT from aptitude
to knowledge of CCSS content
June 26, 2009 Gov. Nixon press
release unilaterally signing MOU
committing MO to Common Core
Standards without ever having seen
the standards or completing detailed
cost analysis for implementation.
MOU time stamped June 25, 2009,.
Nixon joins board of Achieve Inc. in
March 2012; no funds have been
allocated by legislature for CCSSI to
date (March 2013).
When grant money not awarded,
cost of implementing CCSS is
absorbed by state and local school
districts. No provision to school
districts to absorb costs. No
preparation of state to absorb costs.
School districts absorb costs of Microsoft
technology, software, bandwidth, online or paper
tests, instruction materials, processing services,
etc.
Page 3 Memorandum of Understanding
Signed by Governor Nixon
Committing The State To The Adoption of Common
• Federal Role. The partiesCore
support a state-led effort and not a
federal effort to develop a common core of state standards; there is,
however, an appropriate federal role in supporting this state-led effort.
In particular, the federal government can provide key financial support
for this effort in developing a common core of state standards and in
moving toward common assessments, such as through the Race to the
Top Fund authorized in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
of 2009. Further, the federal government can incentivize this effort
through a range of tiered incentives, such as providing states with
greater flexibility in the use of existing federal funds, supporting a
revised state accountability structure, and offering financial support for
states to effectively implement the standards. Additionally, the federal
government can provide additional long-term financial support for the
development of common assessments, teacher and principal professional
development, other related common core standards supports, and a
research agenda that can help continually improve the common core
over time. Finally, the federal government can revise and align existing
federal education laws with the lessons learned from states’ international
benchmarking efforts and from federal research.
Race To The Top Grants
States had to agree to include these four elements
in their grant application to even be considered for
an award. (MO= $250m)
• Adopt a set of national standards
• Join a consortium to develop assessments aligned
with these standards.
• Develop accountability measures for teachers to
teach these standards including tying 50% of a
teacher’s evaluation to their students’ scores on
the assessments.
• Develop a turn around model for failing schools.
Race To The Top Grants
Missouri’s RTTT grant application
estimated the total cost for the
implementation of common core, the
assessments, teacher training, DESE staff
etc. at $740+ million of which they hoped
to get $250m from the federal
government.
(We did not receive a grant award)
Race To The Top Grant
MO 160.526 it states that “... Further, in establishing the
academic standards and statewide assessment system,
the state board of education shall adopt the work that
has been done by consortia of other states and, subject
to appropriations, may contract with such consortia to
implement the provisions of sections 160.514 and
160.518.” The process followed by the Department in
determining Missouri’s Learning Standards, including the
Common Core, clearly follows the dictates of the statute.
To date, DESE has not sought Senate Appropriations
Committee approval for the expenditure of funds to
implement Common Core or approval to join the SBAC
consortia.
Race To The Top Grant
DESE committed to implementing
everything in the RTTT grant, regardless of
whether they got the award. They said it
would just take them longer to complete
the full implementation.
Race To The Top Grant
“Our vision for reform embraces the notion
advanced in the book, Nudge, where Thaler and
Sunstein outline the need for ‘choice architects’
to subtly steer choices toward positive results
while leaving people, districts and schools ‘free
to choose.’ ”
P. 10 MO RTTT application.
What about the
standards
themselves?
Common Core
The Marketing of Lies
The Lie: Common Core’s standards were developed by the
states—or by experts.
Truth: “CC’s standards were written by people chosen by the
Gates Foundation to write the standards: David Coleman and
Jason Zimba, in particular. Coleman had no credentials for
writing ELA standards, had never taught at any grade level, and
was not a literary scholar. (Nor had his associate
Susan Pimentel. She had taught only in Head
Start and had no degree in English.) Jason Zimba
too, had never taught in K-12 mathematics, and
had no experience in developing or writing
math standards.”
Dr. Sandra Stotsky
CCSSI Validation Committee
Common Core
The Marketing of Lies
The Lie – Common Core standards are fewer and clearer.
MO 160.514. 1. By rule and regulation, and consistent with
the provisions contained in section 160.526, the state board
of education shall adopt no more than seventy-five
academic performance standards which establish the
knowledge, skills and competencies necessary for students
to successfully advance through the public elementary and
secondary education system of this state; lead to or qualify
a student for high school graduation; prepare students for
postsecondary education or the workplace or both; and are
necessary in this era to preserve the rights and liberties of
the people.
In the CCSSI English Language
Arts & Literacy in History/Social
Studies, Science, and Technical
Subjects there are 563
separate standards
Common Core
The Marketing of Lies
The Lie – Common Core standards are
internationally benchmarked and designed to
make American children competitive in the
future global workforce.
Truth – Even CCSSI has backed off the claim that
they are internationally benchmarked. No other
national standards were offered when they were
asked to prove this claim.
Dr. James Milgram
Stanford University
CCSSI Validation Committee
“I can tell you that my main objection to Core
Standards, and the reason I didn’t sign off on
them was that they did not match up to
international expectations. They were at
least 2 years behind the practices in the high
achieving countries by the 7th grade, and, as
a number of people have observed, only
required partial understanding of what
would be the content of a normal, solid,
course in Algebra I or Geometry.”
Dr. James Milgram
(cont.)
“Moreover, they cover very little of the content
of Algebra II, and none of any higher level
course….They will not help our children match
up to the students in the top foreign countries
when it comes to being hired to top level jobs.”
The Lie – Common Core standards are fewer and
clearer.
Page 19 Math Standards:
“5. Fluently add and within 100 using strategies
based on place value, properties of operations,
and/or the relationship between addition and
subtraction.”
Common Core
The Marketing of Lies
Claim: Common Core standards are high quality
rigorous standards.
Example: Kindergarten ELA Standard
“Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and
myths from diverse cultures; determine the
central message, lesson, or moral and explain
how it is conveyed through key details in the
text.”
Alliance for Childhood
Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and
Education Professionals on the Common Core
Standards Initiative March 2, 2010
“We have grave concerns about the core standards for
young children now being written by the National
Governors Association and the Council of Chief State
School Officers. The draft standards made public in
January conflict with compelling new research in
cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and
early childhood education about how young children
learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach
them in kindergarten and the early grades.”
500 Early Childhood Experts
Agreed
• Such standards will lead to long hours of
instruction in literacy and math.
• They will lead to inappropriate standardized
testing
• Didactic instruction and testing will crowd out
other important areas of learning
• There is little evidence that such standards for
young children lead to later success.
Common Core
The Marketing of Lies
The Lie: Common Core’s standards will produce
students who are college and career ready.
Truth: Jason Zimba (drafter of CCSS) told the
Massachusetts Board of Education in March
2010 that college readiness in CC mathematics
means readiness for admission to a nonselective community college.
Career Readiness
In testimony before the PA Senate
Education Committee, a proponent of
these standards was asked about college
and career readiness. He responded that
a graduate only needed Algebra I to be
“career-ready” – which he clarified by
specifying that he was referring to
working a service or manufacturing job or
joining the military.
Common Core
The Marketing of Lies
The Lie: Common Core Standards are necessary to
provide consistency for students moving from
state to state.
Truth: Statistics shows that less than 1% of school
aged children move across state lines during their
k-12 educational experience. If students move it
is usually within state lines.
The Lie: DESE has testified that
“Missouri can change the
standards any time they
want.”
Truth: CCSSI, created by NGA and CCSSO, owns
the copyright to the standards. Changing them
violates the terms of use in the license
agreement.
Changing the standards would negate one of the
stated purposes of CC- continuity between
states for students who move.
“Common set of k-12 standards means a set of
content standards that define what students
must know and be able to do, that are identical
across all states in a consortium. Notwithstanding
this, a state may supplement the common
standards with additional standards provided
that the additional standards do not exceed 15
percent of the state’s total standards for that
content area.” Federal Register July 29, 2009
(emphasis added)
Collective Punishment
Def. - a policy of punishing a large
group for the actions of a small group,
meant to bring the pressure of the
majority upon the smaller group to
conform.
“93% of our schools are making Adequate
Yearly Progress.” DESE 2010
In 2010, DESE coerced 99% of all districts into
signing a Memorandum of Agreement with MO’s
RTTT grant application committing them to the
adoption of Common Core standards.
Coercion, intimidation, collective punishment and
policies based on broken theories and antiintellectualism are unnecessary, unproductive and
border on institutional abuse.
Common Core
The Marketing of Lies
“Furthermore we see a disconnect between a
public education system charged with the
development of innovative thinking, creative
thinking, strategizing and problem solving,
and public education system being directed
and managed through policies based on
control and predictable output. The irony is
staggering.” P. 39
The School Reform Landscape – Tienken
Common Core
The Marketing of Lies
We need a set of common standards
and assessments in order to be able to
compare student performance state to
state.
Where is
education reform
headed?
President Obama Addresses
Congress
“……it will be the goal of
this Administration to
ensure that every child has
access to a complete and
competitive education--from the day they are born
to the day they begin a
career.”
The public education system has effectively developed a
workforce for the industrial age, and its graduates have
helped the United States become the most prosperous nation
in the world.
However, the demands of the new information-based
economy require substantial changes to the existing system.
American businesses have pointed to a widening gap
between the skills of graduates and modern workforce
demands.
National Broadband Plan http://www.broadband.gov/plan/11-education/
MSNBC Melissa Harris-Perry
P-20 Longitudinal Data System
• Having recognized that teachers and principals must have
timely and meaningful data to make sound instructional
decisions, and that local and state policies should similarly be
informed by such data, DESE has already instituted a statewide
longitudinal data system, the Missouri Student Identification
System (MOSIS) in the 2007-2008 school year, which is among
the most advanced in the nation.
• MOSIS will enable all stakeholders to utilize P-20 longitudinal
data from the Missouri Comprehensive Data System for
instructional, research, and planning purposes.
• Provide a database accessible to researchers throughout the
nation that is the first-ever link between student performance,
teaching practices, and leadership decisions.
MO RTTT grant application p 15
P-20 Data Collection
The National Education Data Model, funded by the Federal
Government has at least 350 data sets commonly coded for
states to use in elementary/secondary schools to gather
personal student/family information such as:
• Bus stop information
• Base salary or wage
• Family Income Range
• Health care plan
• Dwelling ownership
• Religious Affiliation/Consideration
• Voting status
Abuse of Standardized Test Data
• “Providing incentives to teachers based on school’s performance on
metrics involving student achievement, improvement, and the
learning environment did not increase student achievement in any
statistically meaningful way . If anything, student achievement
declined. ”
Roland Fryer, Harvard
“Financial Incentives and Student Achievement from Randomized Trials.”
• NAEP test results in DC and in New York City show that larger and
larger emphases on test data (including dangling cash prizes in
front of teachers) during the past 2 - 4 years seem to go hand in
hand with lower or stagnant test scores, reversing generally rising
trends that had occurred beforehand.
GF Brandenbyrg http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com
The Players In
The Education
Reform
Movement
Pearson
Sir Michael Barber
Chief Education Advisor
“If you want irreversible reforms, work on the culture and the
minds of teachers and parents”. He says this is important;
otherwise, parents or traditionalists might repeal what’s been
done because of their “wish for the past.” He defines
“sustainable reform” as “irreversible reform” and aims to “make
it so it can never go back to how it was before.”
Gates Foundation
Bill Gates
Founder
• Funded development of CCSSI
• Wants to double college
graduation rates by 2020
• Partially funds the Data Quality
Campaign which provides services to meet
federally mandated data collection.
• Spent $2B over 10 years to fix schools –
admitted effort was a failure.
http://www.schargel.com/2009/01/27/bill-gates-admits-that-small-schools-are-not-the-answer/
David Coleman
President College Board
Architect CCSSI Standards
Board Member Achieve Inc.
• Achieve Inc. supplies education
consulting services, test preparation to ed
industry.
• Formed Grow Network which he sold to
McGraw Hill after he drafted CCSS
• Has promised to align SAT to Common Core
Governor Nixon’s Involvement
• Gov. Nixon is the only Missouri governor listed on
the MO Accountability Portal as having had a
membership in the NGA (data available from
2000-2013);
• Nixon listed as NGA Board member in 2010-2011;
• Nixon currently sits on the Board of Directors of
Achieve,
• NGA and Achieve are NGOs that hold the
copyrights to the English/language arts & math,
and science standards respectively
Taxpayer $$$ Spent on NGA
Dues since 2000
Fiscal
Year
Governor NGA Activity
2001-2004
Gov. Holden: no funds paid for NGA membership
$0
2005-2008
Gov. Blunt: no funds paid for NGA membership
$0
2009
Gov. Nixon unilaterally signs MOA with NGA to commit MO to
adoption of national standards (CCSS)are the only national
standards
$28,800.00*
2010
Gov. Nixon listed on NGA 2010 Tax Form 990 (p. 7)
as a member of the board spending an average of 20 hrs. per
week for the organization
$32,550.00
2012
NGA Tax Form 990 not available on Guidestar.org
$32,885.27
2012†
???? March Nixon appointed to Achieve’s Board of Directors
$130,200.00
Search from 2000 to 2013
Tax Form 990 source: Guidestar.org
* Difference of approximately $4,000
† Two payments to NGA in 2012; second payment
almost quadruple the first
Who is missing as a player?
The local school district
• Parents
• Taxpayers
• School Boards
What Can You Do?
• Educate yourself. Go to MOAgainstCommonCore.com.
Join to receive e-mail updates on actions happening in
the legislature.
• Sign the e-petition to stop common core
• Download the School Board Resolution Regarding
Common Core and share with your district.
• Educate your school board members on the proper role
of the Superintendent.
• Talk to your legislator to let them know you don’t want
common core and individual data collected or shared.
What Can You Do?
Spread the word about and plan to attend one
of the regional Common Core conferences
planned for this fall.
“Take Back Your School”
• September 21st St. Louis*
• October 5th Kansas City*
• October 19th Springfield*
9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
* Tentative dates
"School boards offer citizens from all walks of
life the opportunity to determine the
community’s direction and vision for their
children’s education.”
Missouri School Board Association website
• “If you tell a lie big enough and keep
repeating it, people will eventually come to
believe it. The lie can be maintained only for
such time as the State can shield the people
from the political, economic and/or military
consequences of the lie. It thus becomes
vitally important for the State to use all of its
powers to repress dissent, for the truth is
the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by
extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of
the State.”
– Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda